China’s Ping An Plans $3B IPO of Financial Management Portal OneConnect: Sources

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Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., China’s largest insurer by market value, is starting preparations for an initial public offering of its OneConnect financial management portal that could raise as much as $3 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.

OneConnect picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., CCB International Holdings Ltd. and Ping An Securities Co. to work on the planned Hong Kong share sale, according to the people. The company is targeting a listing as soon as September, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Three Ping An subsidiaries raised a combined $2.2 billion earlier this year, the Hong Kong-listed insurer said in February. OneConnect, which offers AI-powered services such as risk management to financial firms, completed a $650 million funding round that valued it at $7.4 billion. Online health-care platform Ping An Good Doctor raised $400 million ahead of a planned IPO, while Ping An Healthcare Technology completed a $1.15 billion funding round.

Ping An Insurance is preparing listings for its technology units after shares of the insurer have risen more than 80 percent over the past 12 months, giving it a market value of about $190 billion. Alex Ren, the company’s president, said earlier this month that Ping An Insurance remains undervalued after its 2017 earnings topped all analyst estimates.

Representatives for Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan declined to comment, while a representative for CCB International couldn’t immediately comment. OneConnect doesn’t have any information to provide on the matter, it said in a written reply to Bloomberg queries. A representative for Ping An Securities said the firm didn’t have relevant information.

OneConnect provides cloud computing and other technology services to small- and medium-sized financial institutions in China. The company’s partners include 468 banks, as well as 1,890 other firms including insurers, brokerages, fund managers and private-equity investors, according to Ping An’s 2017 annual report released earlier this month.